“No.” My anger resurfaces with the admission. “No, I’m not fucking okay, Kale. He’s been lying to me this whole time.”
“Start at the beginning,” Kale orders, and I collect my coffee and find a table. I sip at the rim of my recycled-paper cup, welcoming the way the scalding liquid burns away any last traces of Shawn’s lips. And then I tell Kale everything, even though I swore to myself I never would. I tell him about the kiss in Mayhem before the tour, about the way Shawn pretended nothing happened. I tell him about the kiss the night I met Victoria, and the way Shawn pinned me against the bus. I tell him about sober kisses and drunk kisses and secrets—all of them, every single one.
“I feel like a fucking idiot,” I finish. “I feel like I don’t even know him. I guess I never did.”
“What are you going to do?”
I press my knuckles into my eye. “I don’t know.”
“How do you not know?” Kale snaps. “Come home, Kit. Fuck him. He’s not worth it.” My twin’s voice is stern, and there’s no mistaking that he’s related to Bryce, or Mason, or Ryan—or me. He’s repeating the exact words he said to me that summer after our freshman year.
He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.
“Do you even know what the worst part is?” I ask, not waiting for an answer. “He told me not to tell anyone about us. He said I wasn’t even allowed to tell you. I guess he just wanted me to be some dirty little fling again.”
I can feel my brother’s anger radiating through the phone during the silence that spans between us. I don’t even hear him breathe, and in the quiet, I stare out the coffee shop window, watching the nine-to-five parade pass me by. Pantsuit, pantsuit, pantsuit, pantsuit. My eyes swing to the mismatched bracelets on my wrist and the chipped black polish on my nails, and I know with absolute certainty that I could never do what the people outside are doing—wake up at the same time every day, do the same job every day, come home at the same time, eat at the same time, go to bed at the same time. This band is my shot, my one big shot. And I want that, even if I don’t want Shawn. Even if Shawn doesn’t really want me. Even if he never did.
When Kale finally speaks again, his voice is a coiled snake. “Kit, listen to me. You need to come home. Right the hell now. Do you hear me?”
“We have a show tonight.”
“So? Shawn is a fuc—”
“I’m not going to let the rest of the guys down just because Shawn’s an asshole.”
“Are you really sure they didn’t know about that night too?” Kale snaps, and my heart sinks even further into my bottomless hole of a stomach.
“Mike didn’t,” I answer as I continue staring hopelessly out the coffee shop window. The sun is too bright, the glass is too clean, and I’m too many worlds away from home. I do just want to go home, but I can’t. Not yet. “I don’t think Adam or Joel do either,” I finish.
“Just like you thought Shawn didn’t . . . ”
My knuckles gravitate to my eye again. “I don’t know, Kale. This whole fucking thing is so fucking fucked.”
A woman at a nearby table clears her throat in an obvious objection to my language, but I’d sooner bite her head off than worry about one more thing.
“Kit,” Kale pleads, “just come home. This isn’t worth it.”
It’s what he’s been saying from the start—and from the start, he’s probably been right. But here I am, with one show left to do, one day left to bear. “I’ll be home tomorrow.”
“No way—”
“Tomorrow, Kale. I’m finishing this.”
It takes me forever to get Kale off the line, and after I finally manage it, I just sit there, staring at my phone and remembering Shawn’s unopened text. I haven’t wanted to want to read it—but here I am, wanting, staring. I watch the black screen until I light it up and make one final call.
“Did you just get off the phone with your brother?” Leti asks by way of greeting. He and I have kept in touch these past few weeks, but I haven’t told him a thing about Shawn. He’s asked, I’ve avoided, he’s persisted, and I’ve changed the subject by getting him to dish about Kale.
“Yeah, why?” I rest my elbows on the table and slouch forward, burying a set of fingers under my hair. My forehead hovers over the laminate surface until I give up the good fight and let my head thump down against it.
“He’s blowing up my phone.”
“Tell him to get bent,” I mutter to the floor.
“Oh, I just might, Kiterina. Do you know what he said to me the other day?”
“What?”
“That it was easier for me to come out than it would be for him. Just because I won prom queen does not mean it was easier!”
I wish I could laugh, but without the energy to even fake it, silence is all I can give.